Celebrating adult learners & the positive power of lifelong learning

Learning doesn’t just happen in a school classroom with a teacher telling us what to learn – although that is how many people think of learning still. Learning happens everywhere anytime whether we are aware of it or not. Learning is an essential part of our evolution, our daily lives, and our daily survival strategies beyond the school gate. Interestingly, learning starts off as an intrinsic joy to children – Maria Montessori talks about the absorbent mind of children, inquisitive and curious about how the world around them and beyond operates. Oh, the joys of being a curious, courageous adventurous six-year-old.

However, for many, when we become adults, we seem to lock our exuberant inner six-year-old in a cupboard, and become a bit jaded about learning and education, especially at work. The ambitious among us, well that’s a different story. They’ve got a plan, goals, and dreams to pursue and so getting educated is part of the plan. Ambitious people seem to adopt being a lifelong learner as part for the course. But so can the rest of us.

What if adult education could be fun and enjoyable, rewarding and enriching, as well as career enhancing and life changing?

Adult education can be all those things and more. From 1-8 September 2021 we are celebrating Adult Learners Week here in Australia.

Adult Learning Australia , the organisation that is promoting Adult Learners Week is committed to lifelong learning for a fairer Australia, and so are we at Barrett.

Extensive research shows that education helps lift people out of poverty and helps change communities and societies for the better. For instance, the Drawdown Project shows that educating girls and women has a dramatic positive impact on climate change. Education helps create better fairer democracies. Education helps people and businesses better adapt and respond to changes and shocks like COVID, as well as find new and better ways to do business, especially for a sustainable future.??

We know when families value education they and their children are better off. When businesses value ongoing education their employees outperform, their clients are happier and businesses do better.

Which is why, at Barrett, we want to highlight and celebrate Adult Learners’ Week with you because it is about:

• promoting the range of learning possibilities
• making learning options relevant and accessible to learners
• creating a culture of lifelong learning
• building a bridge between basic, vocational, and general adult education (including literacy and numeracy)
• showing the strong relationship between adult learning, strong democracies, and productive communities
• creating a learning society that everyone can access

I am passionate about adult learning, in fact, I have consciously dedicated most of my adult to life to this very cause. You may not know this, but I modelled my business, Barrett, on Peter Senge’s excellent work on Learning Organisations – The Fifth Discipline.

We have incorporated the five disciplines of a learning organisation into Barrett:

1. Building a Shared vision
2. Systems Thinking
3. Mental Models
4. Team Learning
5. Personal Mastery

This has served us very well and anyone who knows us can see this in action. We just love learning at Barrett, it’s what keeps us fresh, curious, current, and open minded to the world at large. It’s one of the main reasons we turn up to work, the other being – to make positive difference.

However, in our line of work which is focused mainly around everything to do with sales education , we still have to battle some old thinking and traditions when it to comes learning. Too many companies are fixated on the 1- or 2-day workshops approach, which between you and me, doesn’t change a thing. All it does is validate the already capable and leaves behind those who need it the most. Which is why most people hate adult learning.

We need to really rethink adult learning. Education is ongoing, it is iterative, in sales and sales leadership especially, it is meant to be applied in the real world, reviewed, and fine-tuned, constantly.?So creating learning journeys that are more true to life -available in short relevant ‘snacks’ of learning i.e. 60-90 minute sessions spread out across several weeks- means you can take a 2 day workshop and turn it into a really effective adult learning program. These sessions must be interactive, applied, and never boring. What makes this type of learning even better is if you underpin it by some really good online learning content that include videos, podcasts, exercises, text, models, etc. supported by regular 1on1 and group coaching by leaders in the field. Now we are talking!?

No one and no business can afford to be left behind today. We need to value education more, especially adult education. So let’s all celebrate Adult Education Week and take it way beyond 8th September and make it a lifelong commitment to mastery and evolution.?

Remember, everybody lives by selling something.

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